Wild Kingdom

There was a television show years back called "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." I forget just now the name of the man who hosted the program, but it was a wonderful wildlife show for families to watch together.

During our last few days at the lake cottage, my husband and I kept referring to that old program. First of all, the alligator is back in the lake..... our neighbor hadn't seen him for a few days and she thought the gator had found another place to hang out. Wrong. The alligator was right under her boat-dock this weekend........ we think she was looking out in the middle of the cove and just didn't notice him right under her dock. Huge gator...... I swear that thing is as long as my husband is tall, and that's right about six feet.

Secondly, my husband had bought some bait at Wal-Mart (fresh earthworms). Yuck. Out he went to our dock, bait and fishing pole in hand. And what does he catch? A turtle. Not an itty-bitty turtle, but one big enough to make a pot of soup at a dinner-party for twelve. Well, turtle soup isn't exactly on our list of favorite things, so we had to get the turtle back into the lake. My husband had to "walk" the turtle around the peninsula of our property so he could get the long-handled fishing net.... he didn't want to pull the turtle up out of the water, for fear that the hook would do more damage than it already had.

Of course, once my husband got the turtle up onto the grass, the poor thing pulled his head (and the hook, naturally) inside its shell. How to get the head and the hook out of the shell? There was my husband, gently pulling the fishing line, which gently pulled the turtle's head, which gave my husband just enough of a chance to reach in with a little tool to release the hook. This process wasn't complete with just one try, mind you...... it took three or four tries before we could get the hook-less turtle back into the lake.

Then....... our dog Gracie always walks around the entire back peninsula of our property, and this visit to the cottage was no different. All of a sudden, I see her ears go back, her tail go down, and she's sniffing the ground near the very tip of our peninsula. The same tip of property where I sit down (on the grass!) when I feel like fishing. Of course, my curiosity got the best of me and I went to see what Gracie had found there in that spot. Lord have mercy on my sorry soul........ there was a snake skin there, about four, maybe five feet long. Just the skin. Where's the snake? My husband tells me that the snakes shed their skin when they've outgrown them. Oh goodie..... so that means there's a six-foot-long snake somewhere on our property? Well, I will give you one guess as to who won't be sitting on that peninsula with a fishing pole in her hand from now on.

We never did find the snake, but my husband did keep that snake skin..... he put it on a shelf in the boathouse, so we can show it to young Miss C the next time she comes up to the cottage. Wildlife lover that she is, she will truly appreciate it, and will most likely add it to her collection of treasures in her cabin. Yuck. Double yuck. Alligators.......... snakes....... lake-living in Texas at its best.

On the way back home from the lake, we stopped downtown at the Greek Festival. They don't allow dogs onto the grounds, and we had Gracie with us, so I waited just outside the gates while my husband went inside to get Greek food to go........ boxes of spinach pie, cheese pie, pastitio dinners, Greek salad, baklava. Enough to last for most of this week, without me having to bother much in the kitchen, except for making fresh salad or using the microwave to reheat the Greek foods. We go to this Greek festival every year..... the food is always hot and delicious, the entertainment (Greek dancing and music) is just fantastic, the displays and the Greek bazaar held in the school building on their grounds is always filled with interesting things to look at and buy. And the interior of the Greek church is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.... so that's always worth a look-see as well.

Gracie didn't know what was going on today, but she didn't take her eyes off of the gate of the festival after watching my husband walk through it. She sat there till she got tired of sitting, then she laid down in the grass, all the while keeping her eyes on everyone passing through the gates. People stopped to talk to her and pet her, and Gracie just sat there with her doggie-smile on her face as I told them she was waiting for her daddy to buy Greek food. Gracie was wearing a pink bandana today....... had I given more thought to her accessories, I would've had a blue and white bandana on her (the colors of the Greek flag). And if we could've taught her to bark Opa! maybe they would've let her go through the gate.

My flu is just about gone now..... the past few days at the lake were very relaxing. I didn't even go into town to look at the antique shops while we were up there, which is another sure sign that I wasn't feeling entirely well. We did drive into town to check out the one bookstore and the library. The bookstore was, for the most part, a disappointment. The bulk of their inventory consisted of paperback romances and western novels, but I did find an excellent copy of "No Ordinary Time" there, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. My sister has been after me to read that book for weeks now. At the library, we browsed through the room where they keep their sale books, and wonder of wonders--- I found a hardcover copy of "Hawaii," by James Michener. I've been meaning to buy that book since we got back from Hawaii...... and this vintage hardcover was just one dollar. That book alone was worth the trip into town and then some.... I've started reading it and it's wonderful.

While we were in town, we had lunch at "The Whistle Stop Cafe." And yes, one of their featured items on their menu is Fried Green Tomatoes. I've had them there before and they're actually very good. I wasn't in the fried-green-tomato mood this time, so all I had was half a sandwich and a cup of their homemade vegetable soup. The best part of the lunch was the Halloween display outside the cafe------ they took a vintage bridal gown and put it on a dress-dummy, and then they used a pumpkin for its head, and dried flowers for her bouquet. Well, of course I looked at that and just laughed out loud, and I'm still wondering if I can duplicate that for our Halloween party. I think that would just be a hoot, so I'm going to try it.

Also, while we were in town up at the lake...... the courthouse is on the town's Main Street, and every weekend, now that the temperature has cooled down into the high 80s, a live country-music band will be playing in the gazebo on the grounds of the courthouse. Being that the center of town is so small, the music can be heard on all the streets surrounding the courthouse. It was a nice country-touch..... listening to that music while the pumpkin-bride stood on the sidewalk outside the Whistle Stop Cafe.

And how do I know that I'm getting over this flu and my voice is returning to normal? My husband has finally stopped saying to me: "Repeat after me: I coulda bin a contenda."